The Shut Eye Read Free

continued undoing the nut on the Golf’s exhaust clamp. It was the thirteenth time he’d been fired. Two hundred and sixty quid’s worth of humiliation. Brian Pigeon was some actor – he should have been in the West End, not running a grubby MoT garage in south London – and his anger was convincing, even when you knew it was fake. Sometimes Mrs Pigeon came to the garage, although she rarely got out of her sleek Mercedes – just issued orders to Brian through the window, as if she were at a McDonald’s drive-thru. Brian never got angry with her though, and sometimes James wondered whether that was why he had a reserve of that emotion, all locked and loaded and ready to direct at him whenever a customer looked like getting litigious.
    It always worked. Nothing appeased a rich bastard faster than seeing some grease-monkey fired on the spot for screwing up a job. Nothing made them feel more important.
    It wasn’t for real, but James still found it unpleasant. There was the embarrassment of publicly claiming a cock-up that was never his. There was the forced apology. There was the shouting and the submission and the spittle in the face.
    It all made him feel like shit.
    Even the twenty quid he got made him feel like shit. Brian always gave it to him as if he was doing him a big favour, singling him out for special treatment like a favourite son.
    ‘Jesus,’ said Brian Pigeon quietly.
    Ang stopped singing and stared sadly out of the double doors.
    James followed their gaze and his heart sank even lower.
    His wife was out there, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the forecourt, like Buddha in a blue anorak.
    It only reminded him that feeling like shit was exactly what he deserved.

3
    ANNA BUCK WAS crazy. Anyone could see.
    Every morning she sat in the street. Not against the wall like a homeless person, but right in the way, where commuters had to split around her with their phones and iPods plugged into their ears, and children circled her idly on their bikes like little Apaches.
    Once a day, come rain or shine, Anna opened the grubby front door in the Victorian terrace and edged outside. No sooner had she opened the door than she slipped through and closed it again, fast, checking behind her as if she were trying to keep a cat in the house.
    She always wore the same thing: a big blue waterproof, with sleeves that covered her right down to the fingertips. She kept her eyes down and the hood up, so that her face had an undersea pall. Head covered and bowed, Anna didn’t need to look up to know exactly where she was going – diagonally across the wide pavement and on to the cement of the garage forecourt.
    There she sank slowly to her knees and started to clean.
    Every day, Anna Buck brushed the cement with a toothbrush, wiped it down with a cloth, and then polished it to a gemstone shine.
    Nobody stopped. People were busy and had other places to be. If they looked they just glanced, and only if they glanced again might they have noticed what it was that she was cleaning.
    Five footprints in the cement.
    Five little footprints leading away from the sooty houses to who-knew-where …
    Today was dry and the prints were dusty, and Anna used the toothbrush to clear the grit and dirt from the little rounded indentations where the toes had been. When the large pieces had been brushed away, she pressed her forefinger into the big toe-print, to lift away the dust. She thought of Daniel’s toes – so small and pink and wiggly.
    This little piggy went to market …
    Pink and wiggly-giggly. She’d only had to start the rhyme to make him squirm with anticipation – his eyes made sparkling crescent slits by his chubby cheeks, and his small white teeth showing top and bottom with his squeals of laughter.
    Her finger fitted cosily into the next toe-print.
    This little piggy stayed at home.
    She was still on the second toe – the tip of her forefinger fitted the second toe perfectly, all snug and cosy.
    This little piggy stayed at